Enterprise portals typically seek to provide users with a single point of access to multiple resources such as information and services. For example, in a business setting, employees may use enterprise portals to manage inventory, track finances, and review procedures, all through a unified interface such as by directing a browser to an intranet site.
The resources provided via the portal are typically gathered from multiple locations (e.g., servers) that limit access to authorized users, and may include disparate systems each typically requiring a user to authenticate separately with that system. For example, inventory and customer lists may be stored in a business information database, while product manuals and sales reports are stored by another component, such as a document database, with each database requiring authentication before providing access to information. Unfortunately, authenticating to multiple resources can be cumbersome. For example, situations arise where a user may have a portal account but no account on one or more of the servers. Similarly, a user may have an account on one or more servers but not a portal account. The situation may also arise where a user has different login names and different passwords across multiple servers that are different again from the credentials that user uses to access the portal.
Authenticating to multiple servers via the portal, and maintaining the validity of those credentials (e.g., when passwords change) can be complicated and time consuming. Therefore, it would be desirable to have a better way to provide users with access to information.